Category Archives: What Is Wrong With Scientology?

The lower level scientology program up to the state of Clear is a directed form of client-centered psychotherapy. One doctor fully trained in both client-centered therapy and scientology has astutely written that ‘directed client-centered therapy’ is an apparent oxymoron. That may in fact be a critical entry point for the bipolar quality that seems embedded throughout scientology. Nonetheless, the description of the end product of the scientology lower levels is nearly identical to that described as the self-actualization end product of client-centered therapy.

When a person reaches the Clear state – resembling common notions of self-actualization – he is indoctrinated into the secrets of the universe. Fully grasping those secrets requires the adoption of a form of multiple personality disorder. Incidentally, and not the impetus for this observation, modern mental health recognizes that certain psychotherapeutic practices can serve as a causation factor for mpd. Scientology secrets inform the individual that in fact he is not an individual at all. Instead he is a ‘composite being’, consisting of a potential infinity of separate, distinct individuals. Each individual member of the composite has quadrillions of years of its own experiential history that it brings to the dizzy equation. Extraordinary, and expensive to the seeker, measures are employed to ensure the scientologist believes this universe view with utter certitude. For several tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars the advanced scientologist is invited to address and release each of his or her parasite personalities. The process entails hundreds or thousands of individual sessions. The process takes many years. The individual completes this penultimate scientology advanced level when there are apparently no more personalities left but his own.

The scientologist then pays another ten to twenty thousand dollars for the privilege of determining which of the lifetimes of those now allegedly departed parasite personalities he mistook for his own. That is what L. Ron Hubbard left behind as his legacy.

However, after completing that final scientology level himself Hubbard went back to chasing down more of what he apparently found to be an endless hoard of demonic, parasitic personalities that he continued to harbor. Frustrated, he attempted to finally rid himself of the demons in one fell swoop and kill himself in the bargain through the application of electric shock. He dismally failed in the assisted attempt on his own life. Whether or not that attempt was the cause, at about the same time as his suicide mission Hubbard sustained a debilitating stroke. He was reduced to asking others whether they could hunt down his own parasitic demons personalities for him. (see Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior)

Since Hubbard’s 1986 death scientology authorities have taken to having advanced members who have completed the full scientology program but who are still unsatisfied re-do the entire scientology program from the bottom up. The believer is given to understand that the source of his dissatisfaction is some misapplication of scientology along the way.

For the dedicated member of this monotheistic religion that repeatedly promotes that when in doubt one should ‘do as Ron (L. Ron Hubbard) would do’, there should be little surprise that often one does not experience a happy ending.

In The Tao Of Physics, Fritjof Capra makes some interesting observations on the subject of myth in mysticism and what those of insight come to understand about such. I had as much in mind when I wrote of constructs in the book ‘What Is Wrong With Scientology?’, but clearly did not articulate it nearly as well.

“Indian mysticism, and Hinduism in particular, clothes its statements in the form of myths, using metaphors and symbols, poetic images, similes and allegories. Mythical language is much less restricted by logic and common sense. It is full of magic and paradoxical situations, rich in suggestive images and never precise, and can thus convey the way in which mystics experience reality much better than factual language. According to Ananda Coomaraswamy, ‘myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.’

“The rich Indian imagination has created a vast number of gods and goddesses whose incarnations and exploits are the subject of fantastic tales, collected in epics of huge dimensions. The Hindu with deep insight knows that all these gods are creations of the mind, mythical images representing the many faces of reality. On the other hand, he or she also knows that they were not merely created to make the stories more attractive, but are essential vehicles to convey the doctrines of a philosophy rooted in mystical experience.”

If there is truth to this, what does one make of the understandings or motivations of those who insist upon literal conceptualizations of imaginative religious mythology? Are they of deep insight themselves? Are they actively preventing others from developing or attaining deep insight? You might have experienced some of the cognitive dissonance (or analytical and/or intuitive enturbulance) that is concomitant with inculcation of fantastic mythologies, not as part of an acknowledged ‘mystical experience’ but instead as cold, hard, unquestionable fact. Or perhaps you are comfortable with the security that comes with faith and belief in mythology.

Several commenters speculated as to my purposes for posting Scientology and Presentiment. My purpose was simple: I wanted to hear what other people thought about it. As far as implications are concerned – that is the question I asked folks to weigh in on – my view before I posted was largely reinforced by considering the hundreds of comments.

From my perspective, the most important implication is that it is more evidence that Scientologists are trained into constructs – to the point of confusing the map for the territory. Their attention is focused with a great deal of intention and discipline on mental trauma. Conscious, two-valued logic based, and three-dimensional time-space construct based perception is finely disciplined. This results in increased focus and force of intention. The unthinking, yes/no binary device called the e-meter facilitates this training. In exercising such scientologists are led toward attainment to pre-defined abilities and states of consciousness – known as end phenomena in Scientology auditing. They are promoted and preached as static, permanent states (again using two-valued logic, materialistic terms). I have seen evidence of people becoming better at communication, problem solving, personal responsibility, handling of upsets, and moving out of fixed conditions through application of these constructs. Sometimes they even achieve alleviation of psychosomatic disabilities along the road.

Then, rather consistently, I see them forfeiting their intellectual honesty and curiosity in vain defense of what got them a boost in the aforementioned abilities. In the course of that defense I have witnessed those people become decreasingly effective at communication, problem solving, personal responsibility, handling of upsets and dealing with fixed conditions.

One faculty that is critical to spiritual growth is neglected, and then disabled, along the scientology route. In my view it is at the heart of the decline and reversal noted above. That is intuition. When I use the term intuition I use it in its broadest possible sense. That includes what the world at large considers extra sensory perception (including presentiment) and cognition and what Scientologists have referred to as ‘OT abilities.’

It has been said that the sixth sense could be considered conscience and the seventh sense intuition. I think that paradigm makes a lot of sense and have found it workable in practice. If one abides and nurtures a healthy conscience, attention and awareness is cumulatively freed to perceive and explore greater horizons. That includes those horizons that are not accessible to the traditional five senses; but are visible through intuition. In Scientology, once the aforementioned, dictated abilities are attained (and even during the quest), one is required to forfeit his conscience. I covered how that occurs in the books What Is Wrong With Scientology?and Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior. I cover it in greater detail in A Course on Graduating From Scientology, and suggest means for not only recovering conscience but also rising to the level of intuition.

Initially, intuitive powers are largely ignored in Scientology. As much as Hubbard at times preached the value of pursuing positive gain rather than negative gain (e.g. mid-fifties Ability Congress, Freedom Congress, etc) the scientology bridge ultimately focused on virtually nothing but attempting to remove the negative. Hubbard went so far to definitively announcing a ‘law’ back then that if one focused on disability he would ultimately get more disability and if he focused on ability he would get more ability, and then constructed the entire bridge in defiance of that law. In scientology one’s attention is focused on removing disabilities. One begins his auditing with lengthy sessions defining Dianetics and Scientology constructs. He learns early on that nothing proceeds unless the simple ohm meter (the emeter) with its mechanical yes/no answers green lights it. Attention is focused so as to detect the negative, that which is said to be foreign to the being’s natural state. So focused, the meter ultimately proves there is no end to the negative gain quest (reacting as it does to thought’s or intention’s interaction with the physical body). A number of provisions are enforced to make the constructs real. For example, along the way, if one does not think in pictures, he is treated as a special aberrant case in need of remedies that will get him to think by creating pictures. Then hundreds of hours can be spent auditing out the now-considered malady of thinking in mental image pictures. Or, if a person does not originate incidents from past lives, again he is treated as a special case and subjected to special remedies. Those include running incidents from movies the person may have seen. It even encourages the running of imagination as reality until such time that the person believes that imagination is in fact reality.

Exacerbating matters is scientology’s considerable thought policing that trains a person to rein in intuition. For example, the scientologist is trained to understand that any negative or ‘unkind’ thought he or she might entertain about L. Ron Hubbard or his appointed scientology ecclesiastics is the result of undisclosed crimes the thinker has committed or deeply seated evil intentions he or she harbors. That results in lengthy, traumatic, and very expensive interrogations on the e-meter to remedy the ‘cause’ of such intuition.

By elevating the emeter above judgment and understanding, the two-value logic construct is cemented in place. The all-knowing meter, being a two-valued, binary (charged or uncharged?) device guarantees that.

L. Ron Hubbard once preached against developing meter dependency. I think he understood when he did so that the last thing one wanted to do in search of greater spiritual ability was to synchronize one’s psyche against a crude electronic instrument. But, like with so much in Scientology, he also preached the precise opposite. For example, in 1978 – his self-proclaimed year of greatest technical breakthroughs – he ordered hundreds of long-time, dedicated Sea Org staff to hard labor concentration camps when the meter determined, in most cases against obvious available evidence, they were anti-social personalities unknowingly out to sabotage Ron Hubbard. In the early eighties he instituted a rundown – and demanded its application to all senior scientology ecclesiastics – to conform not only intuitive perception, but perception seen with the naked eye or heard with the ear (see, The ‘Truth’ Rundown). Again, we run into that super-charged word as the only one that can accurately describe the result of yet another scientology dichotomy, cognitive dissonance.

Some of the faculty of intuition can be brought out in the solo auditing process. But, for the most part it is lost by losing reality for the construct while engaging in continuous, active thought stopping to conform with scientology’s thought policing. Should the practitioner even consider the construct as construct, intense thought patrolling (as summarized above) is employed to correct him. What is never permitted to be recognized (which an unmolested or nurtured intuition would easily perceive) is that it is the process of exercising intention across distance – and communicating telepathically – that hones intuitive powers. It is not that which one focuses on, extends intention toward, and communicates with that does the trick. When the construct is implanted as reality – and it is with more force than any Christian or Muslim sect – the scientologist becomes to greater or lesser degree forever the effect of that construct. Again, the meter consistently proves the construct as reality. As a result the upper OT levels can become the route to slavish compliance to the perceptions and the guiding laws of the physical universe. More on this in a Course on Graduating from scientology, and possibly later posts.

There are a lot of benefits to be had from increasing focus and power of intention as I have acknowledged in this essay. The question I pose is, at the end of the day is the effort worth the cost in scientology? For many, they consider that it is. Provided those who fit into that category respect the rights of others not similarly inclined they have nothing to fear from me. I have spent my entire adult life working to guarantee their right to continue along that path. But, now my attention and intention is directed toward working with those who intuit that there are in fact broader horizons than Scientology permits exploration of.

Given recent vicissitudes in these parts it is not practicable for me to be hosting visitors and engaging in lengthy, uninterruptible sessions. Yet, the desire for guided tours out of the Scientology philosophical labyrinth continues to be expressed. I have come up with a solution that may be workable given current conditions and apropos given the evolution of what we do. As noted recently, in essence my coaching or counselling has focused more on connecting dots to get people out of the ‘why trap’ Scientology has so effectively ensnared them into.

I am offering a Graduating from Scientology correspondence course. It is designed for:

-Those who are Clear or higher on the Scientology grade chart and are not planning on doing any more Scientology OT levels.

-Those who find Scientology still occupies their attention and somehow holds them back from moving on with doing and experiencing new things.

-Those having difficulty correlating the gains they did get from Scientology with the outside world and other philosophies and religions.

-Those wishing to continue with spiritual growth, but who do not want to start from square zero.

The course is organized by reading assignments followed by one to one discussions after each venture. I call them ventures (Oxford Dict. Definition: a risky or daring journey or undertaking) not because of any real danger. I am simply highlighting the risk that Scientology contends faces people when they are invited to face and use their minds – something Hubbard once gratefully acknowledged Freud for discovering was not in fact dangerous. The apparent daring or risk involved is simple – if Scientology is the only road to ultimate freedom, and Hubbard really is the unforgiving God set forth so strongly in Scientology policy, there will be hell to pay for those venturing along such a path. Follow up discussions after each venture will be conducted by e-mail, phone and/or skype as appropriate to the venture and individual.

The course does not prescribe a particular ology, ism, or path. Instead, it is designed to equip an individual to choose and blaze his own way. The course does seek to make sense of Scientology at the upper levels and to understand what in actual fact Hubbard was attempting to address. In that regard, following through with the full course requires a fair amount of study assignments. That might be desirable to those who entered Scientology with the intention of learning the secrets of the woof and warp of the universe, but gave up when they recognized Scientology would not truly reveal them. For others not so inclined, you may want to hang for the first several ventures which culminate in a break point that is called ‘Cutting To The Chase.’ It might be that you by then hit a point where Scientology is sufficiently contextualized for you that you can let it go and move on. Others who find it simply uninteresting or lacking in other respects are free to drop out at any stage.

L. Ron Hubbard devised methods using Aristotelian and Newtonian two-value logic constructs that can and do sometimes create peak experiences of a non-dual, infinity-logic consciousness nature. However, Hubbard also constructed a philosophy that is simultaneously inculcated into adherents that anchors them into two-valued logic thinking and living. The philosophy includes as a senior element, an utilitarian ethics system. The ethics system is made senior and precedent to the peak experience therapy techniques that otherwise could give glimpses of intuitive non-duality. The utilitarianism of the ethics system is only apparent. Its representation that it is based upon infinity-logic is false in practice. It is corrupted by creating a central ‘utilitarian’ equation that always has what is good for the group (the Scientologists) weighing senior to all other considerations and thus is always considered what is best for all. That fact makes the system, in fact and in practice, a two-value logic system. What redounds to the benefit of the group is good; what does not benefit the group is evil.

The net result of Hubbard’s system was that he could create adherents who were given a taste of infinity-logic, non-dual reality, but were prohibited by his group ‘philosophy’ and ‘ethics’ from exercising or sustaining such reality. The former serves as the glue that holds adherents to the latter. The adherents could appreciate the possibility of intuition. However, in practice only Ron Hubbard could exercise it consistently. Against those constrictions of the Scientologists’ adopted philosophy and ethics, an inescapable result manifested. To adherents Ron Hubbard was considered a special being from a higher universe as only he could naturally and consistently demonstrate intuitive powers. Scientologist were reduced to aspiring to be like Ron. Ultimately that was an unattainable goal, when adherents were anchored to an ethics and philosophical system of thought predicated upon two-valued logic.

In effect, Scientologists who rise to the highest levels or otherwise adopt Scientology’s dictate that it is the only path to salvation, not only for the adherent but for all others, are trapped in a rather debilitating cognitive dissonance (the persistent attempt to hold two conflicting ideas in harmony). On the one hand, they are thoroughly convinced that they are following a scientifically proven, utilitarian path that leads to transcendent consciousness. On the other hand, in practice, they are prohibited from exercising transcendent, intuitive consciousness by their philosophy and ethics which are firmly grounded in two-valued logic.

My practice is grounded in client-centered education techniques. That is not because I sought to duplicate them. Instead, I recently came to learn that the way I coach and counsel toward recovery and graduation from Scientology was discovered and written about long before I was born. Reading of it helped me to improve what I was already doing. Carl Rogers covered this approach in his book, On Becoming a Person, explaining how educational techniques logically evolve out of client-centered therapy.

That I gravitated in this direction during my own recovery and graduation should be no surprise, given the authoritarian, religious discipline all Scientologists studied under for so many years. The client-centered approach is tailored to consulting the understanding of the client or student. In that regard, it radically differs from Hubbard’s training approach that was memorialized as follows:

If you can’t graduate them with their good sense appealed to and their wisdom shining, graduate them in such a state of shock they’ll have nightmares if they contemplate squirreling (defined as departing one iota from the letter of what is taught). – L. Ron Hubbard, Keeping Scientology Working

That learning philosophy was explained further in Hubbard’s highest level instructions (Class VIII course) wherein he told the most advanced Scientologists that humanity was incapable of being appealed to through understanding; and so, instead, it was their duty to command people and make them ‘obey.’ (See Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, Amazon Books 2012)

Irrespective of the fact that much of the technology such methods sought to impart was geared towards bringing a person to self-determined understandings, that system of indoctrination ultimately implants fixed, subjective ideas about living, God and ultimate spiritual concerns. At the end of the day, the methods place a glass ceiling on growth (in fact create regression) by means of enforced belief that curiosity and thirst for continuing education inherently stem from aberration.

It may well be that I was also influenced in the client-centered approach through my own earlier education, some of which was influenced by, or was even attempting to experiment in, Roger’s educational recommendations. The middle school I attended was a fail-pass (no grade), choice of curriculum, self-scheduling format with emphasis on consulting students’ interests. I also attended a semester of similar organization at University of California Santa Cruz. I never knew until I read Rogers where these ideas came from. Perhaps my Scientology study contributed to this leaning too, since I have noted in the post On Becoming A Person, Scientology’s central practice (auditing) is a modified, structuralized form of Rogerian client-centered therapy. No matter what led to which along this road, it is interesting to note how what gets around comes around.

Having studied all of Scientology and a great deal on the subjects that led to its development (including their continued evolution while Scientology has remained static), a simple, workable rule of thumb has materialized for me. That is, the degree to which Scientology departs from its client-centered philosophical and technical roots is proportional to the degree it harms rather than helps. This in large part has become evident to me in helping people who were disappointed with their Scientology experience over the past five years. Almost to a one, somewhere along the line each individual’s intent and purpose for engaging in Scientology in the first place were tampered with, rejected and replaced entirely by imposed intents and purposes.

Somewhere along the line in the Scientology experience the magic of the technology – each of its efficacious results marked by its adherence to its client-centered philosophic roots – is replaced by inculcation of the client rather than consultation and service of his or her needs, wants, aspirations and purposes. Those goals do, and ought to if a positive evolution of awareness and ability is being achieved, change along the road. But evolution in Scientology is geared solely toward achievement of goals that do not involve the client’s participation in establishing, except to the extent means are employed to obtain the client’s agreement to pursue them. The attainment of those implanted goals turns out to be purely subjective – no matter how clothed in science its claims and promises are presented. An objective examination of the result of those who pursue the implanted goals to their ends – no matter how convincing its achievers may be in professing their alleged subjective feelings of happiness, power, ability and bliss of self-actualization – proves their actions often betray their vigorous assertions of equanimity. For the most part they have turned their own self-determinism (the restoration of which is promised) over lock, stock and barrel to their teacher (See What Is Wrong With Scientology, Amazon Books 2012). They will lie, steal, and cheat for their religion without a twinge of conscience – all while attempting to exude a vibrant, open, extroverted appearance. Thus, they cannot be trusted by ordinary mortals, not even by their mothers, fathers or even their children. In any values computation, their religion trumps conscience. And thus the price of the ultimate ring in Scientology is the forfeiture of one’s conscience.

That result is patently evident from counseling a number of people who have completed much of, or all of, the Scientology route both inside and outside of Scientology. To a one, of those who graduated and moved on, their departures from Scientology were occasioned by their consciences failing to succumb to Scientology demands that they be forfeited. To a one, of the dozens I have counseled. The top Scientology achievers who remain, who forfeit their consciences to achieve (or at least assert) the ultimate super human powers Scientology promises, are in the somewhat schizophrenic condition of apparently being as happy as hell but in fact having nowhere to go. The result is continued, slavish adherence to the goals and programs of an organization that – by the time it has ceased delivering client-centered techniques – offers no purpose beyond self-perpetuation and world dominance. The resultant super-amped adherent’s course is described well by Abraham Maslow, as apparently a common result of many paths that lose sight of client-centered principles:

The better we know which ends we want, the easier it is for us to create truly efficient means to those ends. If we are not clear about those ends, or deny there are any, then we are doomed to confusion of instruments. We can’t speak about efficiency unless we know efficiency for what. (I want to quote again the veritable symbol of our times, the test pilot who radioed back, ‘I’m lost, but I’m making record time.’)

Client-centered education begins with finding out where the interests and purposes of the student (client) lie. One encourages open communication in that discovery process. Viktor Frankl’s work Man’s Search For Meaningis helpful in that regard. Knowing the individual before you proceed is essential in working to recover and strengthen that person’s determinism. Omitting this step tends to usurp determinism. One doesn’t rehabilitate and enhance the faculty of determinism by indoctrination that conflicts with the client’s interests and purposes. For example, one does not force a student who is inspired by, inclined toward – and thus usually gifted in some way – the arts to become an arms manufacturing specialist. Similarly, one would not attempt to enforce upon a person seeking spiritual awakening the behavior and habits of a para-military religious zealot.

A client-centered educator does not preach and teach as much as find out and only then guide. He puts more emphasis on assisting an individual in finding and following his own purposes and interests. He then does what he can to help the person move along that chosen path with the best possible chances for success. He acts more as a facilitator than an instructor. He operates more of a resources center than a rigid curriculum school.

I have been asked, and challenged, to publish the specific route I recommend several times. I have tried to do that. But, each time in the process I find myself thinking of particular individual whom I have assisted in the past and recognize that a given reference for that person would not be of interest or applicable to another individual I had worked with. No two paths are exactly the same. I have learned through life that to the extent one tries to convince you otherwise that person is trying to lead you to where he wants you to go – irrespective of how eloquently he might convincingly represent otherwise. To the extent one attempts to enforce one way for all, one deviates from the client-centered approach – and some other interest or evaluation is entered into the equation for someone to whom it may not apply or serve any salutary purpose.

There are a number of recommendations I have made in the recommended reading section of the blog that I find myself recommending over and over again to people. For the most part those are applicable to the Scientology decompression and contextualization process, and lead toward freeing one from Scientology’s injunctions against exercise of conscience and awareness. Most of them were chosen because of their effectiveness in expanding people’s intellectual and spiritual horizons after years or decades of having those horizons treated as forbidden terrain.

I am working on a book that will make many more recommendations for those seeking to move up the Scientology Bridge in an integral fashion (non-cult, integrated approach), and another for those seeking to move up from and beyond the Scientology Bridge. In the meantime, I strongly recommend that those embarking on the Scientology path – whether in the church or out – read What Is Wrong With Scientology?, before doing so. It will help you avoid the pitfalls inherent in the system.

I borrowed, or coined by inspiration, from Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search For Meaning) the idea that decompression was the first and most important step in recovering from the Scientology experience with an upward trajectory. Frankl – having himself survived years of imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps, and attempted to help others similarly situated upon release – noted that an adjustment period was critical for someone coming out of a strictly controlled environment to a relatively free society. He likened it to a deep sea diver submerged for several hours far beneath the surface. One must bring the diver back out from under the tremendous pressure he has adjusted to on a gradient basis or he will suffer from Decompression Sickness, also known as the bends. Similarly, if a person imprisoned – even mentally – in inhumane conditions, conditioned to think and act in super-compliant ways while developing all manner of deceitful (albeit as justifiable as they may be) means to survive, comes out acting like he owns earth he is going to be in for big, ugly and possibly devastating losses.

Over time I have exchanged observations with other counselors about a number of folks that we guided and assisted through the Scientology Underground Railroad – or Decompression Road. One pattern we all have observed, and taken terrible losses on, is Scientologists entering the family of humanity with the exclusive, arrogant and judgmental attitudes they developed to survive in Scientology culture. All of us have expended a great deal of resource and effort in helping to clean up messes such attitudes have created, and in getting people who exhibit those attitudes back on their paths after the inevitable smack downs society tends to deliver in response. For those going through that process now, and who are discomforted absent orientation to L. Ron Hubbard references, everything I have noted thus far in this article is in complete accord with Scientology notions of the efficacy of tackling problems,development and life on a gradient scale; and even the ethics conditions formulas (see Non- Existence condition and formula).

One of the first posts on the Milestone 2/iscientology blog – created largely in protest of my books and this forum – was a piece attempting to discredit this idea of decompression as some psych-based attempt to belittle Operating Thetans and put people at introverted effect. It reasoned that former Sea Org members and public OTs who bought into the idea they could use a tad of decompression as part of their gradient entry into the community of fellow human beings were victims of an attempt to put them at groveling effect of the psych-indoctrinated ‘wog’ world. By God, the MS2ers proclaimed, we need to bring society up to our standards, Revenimus! (In keeping perhaps with the Class VIII indoctrination, ‘you are the people who own the planet’ – see Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior). This mentality of wanting to cling to the inside is understandable (see e.g. the films The Shawshank Redemption and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – I know you have all seen them, but watch them again with the Scientology experience in mind).

These thoughts arose when considering a general response to the many inquiries I have received lately asking me which of my three books ought to be read in what sequence. That includes a lot of non-Scientologists asking what book might appeal to or help a Scientologist family member or friend. My answer is always a question, eliciting information on where the person is at on the decompression process. When I know something about their circumstances I can recommend the single book that I think might help the person concerned. They do not necessarily flow one to the next in the order they were written. And all three of them aren’t for everybody necessarily.

So here is a short generalized guide to whom I believe the three books individually might appeal to, and hopefully help – in alignment to degrees of decompression already experienced by the concerned person.

The Scientology Reformation.

This book was written primarily with Scientologists still connected with the church in mind. It is anchored upon L. Ron Hubbard references and attempts, on a gradient basis, to get a Scientologist to observe for himself or herself just how far adrift Scientology Inc has strayed from the intent and purposes memorialized (at least in some places) by its founder. It introduces hope that one need not reject all of Scientology, in order to escape and even to take a stand against its abuses.

What Is Wrong With Scientology? Healing Through Understanding

This book would likely be dropped like a radioactive rock by the time a Scientologist in good standing read the first sentence of the introduction. It is addressed more to people who are already out of the church, and for whom turning back is no option. It is a detailed presentation and analysis of the features of Scientology that tend toward entrapment. It describes in some detail the sum and substance of what Scientology’s effective processes are in order to set the table for analyzing what is wrong with it and how it is ultimately used to entrap. If one only mindlessly makes a break and declares a wholesale rejection of everything scientology, one tends to become as glued to it as ever, albeit from the opposition vector. That is because he or she never took the time to understand and come to grips with what salutary aspects of it may have kept one pursuing it in the first place. If one understands that, one can transcend the experience in a more desirable state than victimhood.

Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior

Because of the personal, autobiographical nature of this book and its consequent gradual, real time and subjective introduction to Scientology this can inform someone never involved in the subject with a perspective they will get nowhere else. That is, what attracts and keeps one involved in the subject. Popular books and films have been woefully two-dimensional and inaccurate in that regard. They only focus on fear factors, which for those involved had next to zero effect in garnering their voluntary, self-determined involvement (the involvement that creates the most lasting effect on someone). Many who have read it remarked that reading another’s real time experience of getting into, developing into a crusader for, and then transcending out of it prompted them to review their own experience more honestly, fully and rationally. And that had a liberating effect upon them.

Memoirs is probably akin to a post-doctorate extension of the ‘what is wrong with Scientology’ analysis. But not with a lot of opinion. For the most part I let the facts do the talking.

While I still regularly use the term, and the model, of ‘decompression’ I am more often using it with a modifier to better describe what it is I am trying to accomplish: Decompression with an upward trajectory.